IYO, who were the last good Republican House Speaker and Senate Majority Leaders?

[OAITW r.2.0]

They have sucked royally since 1990 or so...

[TwilightZone]

1. Joseph Martin, maybe, on the House side.

That was 1955. He (later) supported various civil rights acts, as well as LBJ's Economic Opportunity Act. He'd previously been an opponent of much of FDR's agenda, though he supported some New Deal provisions.

He was at least tolerable.

He was famous for reading Douglas MacArthur's scathing letter criticizing Truman's policies aloud on the floor of Congress, resulting in MacArthur's dismissal less than a week later. The ironic thing is that he did it hoping that it would bolster MacArthur's position. Oops.

[OAITW r.2.0]

6. Eisenhower Republican, no doubt.....

[Enter stage left]

2. None, since I got interested in politics...

It is my opinion that Eisenhower was the last decent Repuq to hold office.

[empedocles]

4. Ike was a tired, old man. Not much interest in the job.

Give him credit for his sending federal troops to Arkansas. Only he could make that decision.

[I had the opportunity to review a number of memos that he initialed as having read. Very brief executive summaries].

[Enter stage left]

7. He was anything but a tired old man...

He put hundreds of thousands of people to work on infrastructure and the interstate system, and helped get the US back to work after the war.

I'm not saying he was perfect, but he was good for the country when we needed him.

[empedocles]

13. Boom times. He signed off on projects, didn't get in the way.

When he wasn't having all those heart attacks, or putting golf balls, he was ok.

There was much to be done, as LBJ showed.

[OAITW r.2.0]

10. Credit for the National Highway System?

The 1956 Republican platform is pretty damn progressive....maybe socialist. As the Anti-fa General of US troops in WW2, I think he saw 1st hand the sacrafice that the lower/middle class did to win the war. His Presidency and party values reflect that contribution.

[Volaris]

3. Soooo...Newt was the last GOP Speaker that could count heads effectively,

And Yertle has been Leader since I've been paying attention.

Anything back past that will require the memory of my Elders lol...

[Jilly_in_VA]

5. But he was horrible

He is responsible for much of the polarization going on now in the House. And I'm 77, been interested in politics most of my life thanks to my parents, and I can't even remember a decent Repug Speaker or Majority Leader.

[Volaris]

8. This is true, for sure... newt is a terrible person, but that wasn't what I was judging.

I was judging the very much more narrow-er criteria of being 'good at ones job', which for a congressional leadership position is NARROWLY defined as being able to count t heads for votes.

It's a Low Bar, I'll cop to that lol.

[OAITW r.2.0]

11. Gingrich was the inflection of the hate political virus.

Destroying common ground to promote his corrupt agenda.

[Beachnutt]

9. Bob Dole ?

[OAITW r.2.0]

12. Seemed like Newt ran the Washington Republican political show.

I think there were still some Republican Senate moderates back then.

[JHB]

14. To be fair, since 1945, out of 76 years they held the Senate Majority Leadership for 25...

...15 of which are in the 90s or later, and 21 since 1980.

For the Speakership, 24 years, 20 of which were in the 90s or later.


So almost all of their postwar tenure has been while they were on the conservative crazy train, grabbing everything with both hands and treating cooperation with Democrats as treason.

Maybe the better question is who were the last good Republican minority leaders?